Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has always championed his national security bona fides, yet his record is not only unimpressive but a colossal failure in regard to the Palestinians, Iran and U.S.-Israel relations
When it comes to foreign policy and national security, Benjamin Netanyahu recalls Winston Churchill’s reported description of Clement Attlee: a modest man with much to be modest about.
For a prime minister who always extolled his own foreign policy and national security credentials and glorified his perceived triumphs, Netanyahu’s record is not only unimpressive but a colossal failure on three critical issues.
First, on the Palestinian issue, Netanyahu deliberately and myopically brought Israel to the precipice of a “one state” reality – a demographic and political catastrophe of historic proportions.
Second, his policy regarding Iran’s nuclear program achieved the diametrically opposite effect: accelerating Iran’s progress and enhancing its capabilities to an unprecedented degree in terms of potential accumulation of the weapons-grade material necessary for a nuclear device.
Third, by design Netanyahu changed the dynamics and political character of the U.S.-Israel relationship and created a deep crisis, moving away from bipartisanship to blatant, unadulterated partisanship.
All three are analytically distinct but strategically interconnected issues. More importantly, the three don’t just reflect flawed or legitimate policy choices, but a total lack of a grand strategy based on long-term analysis and planning. For Netanyahu, the bravado peppered with sanctimonious history lessons is always about politics, his fortunes and survival. Nothing is really about national security.
The Palestinian conflict
Netanyahu’s stringent opposition to a Palestinian state is a perfectly legitimate position and, given circumstances since the 1990s, reasonable. The “two states” model has lost considerable appeal and feasibility. But if not the two-state solution, then what? Not once, ever, did Netanyahu stand up and explain his reservations, highlight the risks and emphasize the dangers. Instead, he stalled and deceived – which is his default modus operandi – and half-adopted half-baked concepts on a “bottom-up economic solution” or “managing the conflict,” as opposed to trying resolve it.
There are other possible ideas and solutions, but he never entertained any. His policy was to consistently weaken the Palestinian Authority, strengthen Hamas in Gaza and create the sense that nothing is achievable since there is no credible partner.
His new extremist government is expanding settlements, contemplating annexation in the West Bank and making it clear that there will not be any diplomatic process with the Palestinians. The short- and mid-range danger is that the PA will implode financially and politically or might dissolve voluntarily, citing no silver lining or reason for its existence.
The longer-term issue is that it introduces the “one binational state” option. With almost demographic equilibrium between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea – 51 percent Israeli Jews, 49 percent Palestinian Arabs – you can only imagine the consequences.
Iran
While the Palestinian impasse and its inevitable demographic and political implications for Israel represents Netanyahu’s most dangerous long-term failure, his most glaring and excruciating fumble is his Iran policy.
Paved with the best of intentions and prescience regarding Iran’s aims, he accomplished the opposite. Iran is for Netanyahu his entire raison d’être, his historic calling. In his mind and interpretation of history, he was uniquely positioned to save Jewish – and indeed Western – civilization from extinction. But for years Netanyahu has been that doctor who provides you with an accurate diagnosis but can never produce the viable prognosis.
His most conspicuous and striking failure is “Israelizing” the Iran nuclear issue. After successfully attracting world attention to the threat Iran poses, Netanyahu was intransigent and insistent that no diplomatic solution was sustainable, implying that the United States should credibly threaten and consider using military force.
He opposed the 2015 nuclear deal (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA), actively lobbying against it. He infamously went behind then-President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden’s backs and delivered a speech to Congress against the agreement, serving nothing but Obama’s Republican opposition.
Netanyahu said “there’s a better agreement” – but never produced one. He said it can and should be fixed, but never bothered to specify how. He encouraged then-President Donald Trump to unilaterally withdraw from the agreement, which he did in May 2018, despite Iran generally adhering to it according to the International Atomic Energy Agency that monitored the agreement.
When, in 2020, Iran announced that it would no longer abide by the JCPOA, Netanyahu accused Tehran of violating an agreement he was against and had persuaded Trump to leave, without a plan B or substitute policy in place. He was against Biden’s recent efforts to renew the agreement, and is now against any partial or interim deal.
Iran, meanwhile, substantially improved its enrichment capabilities with new centrifuges and is now on the brink and just a political decision away from breaking out of its “threshold state” status and producing sufficient enriched uranium for a nuclear device.
Furthermore, since 2018 Iran gradually but effectively broke out of its geopolitical isolation, both in the region (Saudi Arabia) and outside it (China).
Netanyahu’s 2015 and 2018 antics made the United States less patient and less attentive to his warnings. This results in an American political and defense establishment with diminished willingness to accept Israeli input. When you consider Netanyahu’s actions as prime minister in the 21st century (2009-2023, precluding 2021-2022), he deserves the ironic title “The father of Iran’s modern nuclear program.” The world, meanwhile, much busier and concerned with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, lost interest and regards it as primarily an Israeli issue.
The U.S.-Israel relationship
Netanyahu’s management of Israel’s relations with the United States has been dealt with extensively, and deserves further separate scrutiny. He turned his natural affiliation with the Republican Party since the late ’90s, when he was prime minister and Newt Gingrich was speaker of the House of Representatives, into constant confrontations with then-President Bill Clinton.
He then expanded his GOP bona fides by allying with the conservative tea party movement against Obama, and the icing on the cake was his bromance with Trump. He constantly meddled in American politics and behaved like he was the Republican senator from the great State of Israel. In the process, he alienated most Democrats, flagrantly distancing himself from American Jews – 75 percent of whom vote Democratic on a multiyear average.
He also turned a sacrosanct principle of Israeli policy – protecting and nurturing bipartisanship on all things Israel – into clear partisan preference. This process, deliberate and by design, threatens the very foundation of the U.S.-Israeli relationship: the concept of “shared values.”
More than circumstantial political considerations, this demonstrated a total lack of discernment about America’s changing demography and body politic. Alignment with the ever-more-radicalized Republican right runs contrary to Israel’s long-term interests. When the president and the Senate majority are both Democratic, that’s sheer recklessness.
The point of convergence
With the introduction of the illiberal judicial overhaul, Netanyahu effectively illuminated the link between all three issues: The lack of a grand national strategy from an Israeli perspective, and a severe credibility deficit in the United States and elsewhere in the Democratic world.
All three issues are foreign policy by definition, but Netanyahu’s efforts on each exhibits domestic political expediency. In terms of cost-effectiveness, he has little to show in all three.